As the police car turns into the driveway, I notice the station looks like my elementary school without windows. The concrete has been freshly painted a two-tone brown, tan on top and chocolate on the bottom, just like Uncle Kevin’s van.

I wish someone would come and spray paint a sunset on the building and make things all better, but I know once we drive through a gate with razors along the top that I’m fucked.

I check the doors and wonder if I can roll out like Steve McQueen, but there aren’t any handles. Probably a good thing. Flying down LBJ Freeway during midday traffic, I feel pretty sure my head would get squashed like a watermelon on a hot day, my seeds sizzling on the asphalt.

It’d be cool if Sam Fuller was around. He could shoot it with his 16mm camera.

I sink into the shredded leather seat. I’ll be a watermelon anyway when my dad finds out I’ve been arrested. He’ll probably drop kick me into the creek behind the house. The kids who smoke pot down there will find my body and flick cigarettes at me while they jack off to Black Sabbath.

At least I’ll be listening to killer music.

A girl cop with enormous cock-eyed boobs waves to our car as we park in a loading dock. I wonder if she knows how retarded she looks.

She winks at me.

“Whatcha got? A couple of girrrrrrrrls?” she asks, stretching out the word the way I know she wants spread my legs.

“I’m not a lesbian hooker, that’s for sure,” I snap as I get out from the back seat, though maybe I should have rethought the fishnets that morning.

“Just a couple of juvi’s,” the cop who drove says, slamming the door.

“Look like pros to me,” Old Cock Eye says with a shrug as she presses a buzzer that opens a metal door.

The police station smells like drywall and tuna fish sandwiches, but no one’s eating lunch. The place is a classroom in summer though all the empty desks have mile high stacks of papers on them. A cop near the window opens a filing cabinet. The squeal of it opening rips a hole through the unexpected quiet.

They must all be out chasing bad guys.

No hookers or pimps, either.

I’m a little disappointed. I was secretly hoping for a carnival of sinners and lunatics.

I wonder if I’ll have to work a chain gang the way he did, and I wonder if they’ll give me nail polish to fix my nails when I get a chip in them, and I wonder if I can listen to The Pretenders while I hammer.

Probably not.

Probably, I’ll have to wear stupid striped pajamas.

Probably, I’ll get fist fucked by a girl with bad acne.

The handcuffs hurt. I try to wiggle my wrists, but they slice into me like cat claws no matter what I do. I surrender to the pain and shuffle alongside my sister, Michele, who was arrested with me for stealing a felony’s worth of clothes from the Joskes Junior section.

Since we weren’t even smart enough to take the clothes off the hangers before we shoved them into giant paper sacks we snaked from an unattended register, I figure we’re looking at some hard time.

Michele’s mohawk starts to wilt. Mascara tracks splatter her face, and I can’t help but laugh, thinking she looks like a sad stegosaurus.If only she would get really pissed off the way she does on the school playground and bulldoze our way out of this place.

We might stand a chance.

One of the cops gives me the devil eye for laughing, so I shut my hole. No sense starting trouble with The Boss. I might need cigarettes later, even though I don’t smoke.

The fingerprint ink stinks like licorice. I have a marker at home that smells the same way and sometimes I sniff it for so long my head gets all spinny. Sometimes I get ink on my nose. I wonder if the ink on my fingers will be as hard to come off.

Probably.

Michele starts to cry when they separate us. I guess they don’t want us planning a big escape or anything. Probably smart since Michele and I tend to bring out the crafty in each other. We both like action movies, and sometimes we practice being Bruce Lee.

(Usually though, we just throw stars against the garage door.)

We might need more practice if we’re going to prison.

“Don’t be scared,” I say to Michele as they take her into a room that looks like a normal office.

But I can tell she is:

Scared.

I’m scared, too.

I don’t want to get fist fucked by a girl with bad acne or cock-eyed boobs.

“I have a Milky Way in my purse,” I say to the cop who takes me into a small room. I hold my breath, hoping she’ll take my bribe, but she opens a notepad instead, clicking her pen a hundred times.

“I don’t feel so good,” I say listening to the dizzy rhythm of her Bic.

She leaves and comes back with a Dixie cup of water. I drink it in one gulp, but the fire in my throat rages. I wonder if she’s slipped me a mickey, even though I don’t know what a mickey is, but since I heard it on TV, I wonder anyway.

I think about asking, but I catch her staring at me.

I stare back.

Staring always works in movies.

Clint Eastwood has the best stare. I channel him.

A year passes before she says anything. She gets uglier by the day. My blood starts to curdle. Fear morphs into contempt. I’m sick of grown-ups who play games.

“How old are you?” she finally asks.

“I already told you,” I snap, slipping into the role of prisoner without an understudy.

“What’s your name?”

“You already know. You have my paycheck.” One of the many things she confiscated after she took me down, including my Bonne Bell lip-gloss, which I want back. It’s hard to find in root beer.

“You’re a disgrace,” she says. “Look at you. Guess you feel pretty proud of yourself.”

I examine myself. From my patent leather go-go boots to the fishnets ripped during the big chase sequence through the mall to my snakeskin miniskirt. I felt like a rock star this morning, but now I just feel like a sad old country song.

“Am I going to prison?” I ask.

She laughs then leaves me to worry about my future.

I think about all the prison movies I’ve seen.

My hands get cold. I stick them under my arms, but I start shivering allover nonetheless. I think about all the fucked up things Billy Hayes suffered in Midnight Express. I remember how scared I was just watching the movie. Could I survive such brutality?

My feet fall asleep and my teeth start chattering. I wonder how I’ll ever be able to defend myself from a fist fucker if I can’t even feel my hands and feet.

Why am I so cold?

I keep thinking about what the cop said. Her words boom in my head like a bass drum.

Disgrace. Disgrace. Disgrace. Da-dumph.

Disgrace. Disgrace. Disgrace. Da-dumph.

I write a quick rock song in my head before my thoughts turn to my mom.

Her words will gut me.

“I’m disappointed in you,” she’ll say as she leans back in our yellow velvet couch. I’ll stare at the cranes in the Chinese screen above her head in order to avoid looking at her face.

Anything to avoid that face.

It’s a face that means what it says. A face that never lies. A face that can tell your fortune and bless you on your journey in life. A face that can cure loneliness and slow time. A face that will rain an ice age because of what I’ve done and crack every time it remembers until there’s nothing but canyons of grief and rivers of disillusion.

The Japanese believe suicide is a virtue.

I think about Seppuku, the sword plunging into my stomach with a quick jab. No hesitation. No regrets. I think about the back and forth slicing motion of the blade. I wonder if it hurts.

Of course, it hurts.

I think about downing a bottle of St. Joseph’s aspirin (they’re so good), and sitting in the garage with the car on. (I got this idea from an after school special.)

I think about putting a nail gun to my head and chewing on Oleander leaves.

Cliff diving. Bull fights. And San Antonio enchiladas.

After forty-five minutes of sweating out the shivers and daydreaming about death (and occasionally food), the cop finally returns.

“Is it too late for you to call my dad instead?” I ask as she walks through the door. I’d rather take a beating than endure my mother’s broken face.

“You’re Mom’s already here,” she replies.

My heart quickens as we walk down a long hallway drenched in sour apple light. I can see Michele standing with my Mom’s boyfriend, Larry, a fireman we really like because he convinced my mom to let us go see The Rocky Horror Picture Show every Friday night (probably just so he could make out with her on the yellow couch, but it was still cool of him.)

I’m guessing my Rocky Horror days are over, and as soon as I see my mom, I know I’m right. There won’t be birthdays or camping trips or sleepovers or television for fifty thousand years.

When she isn't making movies or music, DUCKY WILSON serves as a spy for the Bokonon Underground Army, living by the foma that makes her brave and kind and healthy and happy. Her poetry has been published in several literary magazines, none of which you've ever read, and her nonfiction work can be read exclusively on The Nervous Breakdown. Currently, she is in development on her next film, an offbeat musical about misfits looking to belong.

81 responses to “No Fist Fucking, Please”

Geez. You got hauled in, eh? That’s creepy. I’ve been detained in the store’s little security booth where they pretend to call the cops and really call your parents. The look from the parent was the same, though. My father didn’t say a fucking word on the ride home. That was the worst part of it. The silent drive.

Cops didn’t believe me when I told them I was only 14. In all fairness, we did steal a lot of stuff, and I’m glad I got busted.

The drive home will be part 3. This one was actually part 2 to another post, “Any Other Day,” but given Olear’s recent post, and given not too many people read Part 1, I thought I’d better snazzy up my titles.

At last, the long-awaited sequel! It more than lives up to expectations. So funny, the whole thing, especially the attempted bribe. And I agree with you and Greg about St. Joseph’s aspirin — I’d forgotten how much I used to love that stuff. (Flintstone vitamins were another beloved delicacy.)

Of course, I also have to appreciate all the film references, including Sam Fuller. Oh, and handcuffs do fucking hurt — a lot. I’ve been cuffed a few times, though I was never officially arrested. (Knock wood.) I remember one night I got picked up by the police on suspicion of something or the other — I was around fifteen — and when their suspicions proved wrong, they took sadistic pleasure in escorting me home and turning me over to my mom. “She’s going to be in her nightgown,” I told them just before they knocked, hoping it would stop the knock. It didn’t.

Ah, thanks, Duke. Glad it succeeded. Sometimes I look back at the kid I was and I wish I had appreciated myself more. I can’t believe I thought a Milky Way would do the trick, but I loved/love chocolate, so…

I’ve been cuffed a few times, too, but thankfully, only twice by the law.

You wanted to be so tough, so bad, but you wanted to do it without your mom being disappointed in you.
Should’a thought THAT one through.
Mom’s are powerful behavior monitors, if you let them in your head BEFORE you did stuff.

Not that I was not similar.
But it was my dad who I wouldn’t want to find out.
I would’ve enjoyed flashing it in my mom’s face, were my dad not right there.
Unfortunately, they were a pair.

Your writing is pop and crunchy
and when I speed read I look for words that catch my attention
you’ve always got lots of them
but first I stopped on the image
of kids smoking by the creek
and pleasuring themselves
to – I dont know -“Sweet Leaf”?
“Children of the Grave”?
because much as I love Sabbath
I cannot imagine anyone thinking
anything sexy to the storm and dirge
of Iommi & Dio or Ozzy.
But it was a weird and fun incogruent thought.
Then, then – you little winking hussy –
you go and name drop the Texas Tornado
Kerry Von Erich.
Email me.

I’m going to rename my last piece “In Which Our Hero Avoids Being Fist Fucked by a Lesbian of Questionable Complexion (or Anyone Else For That Matter)”

I don’t think I’ve got the hang of this. Yet.

“Cliff diving. Bull fights. And San Antonio enchiladas.” – I misinterpreted that, thinking San Antonio enchiladas might lead to a glamorous death. I wondered how many you’d have to eat, and then wondered whether it was a euphemistic thing, like a Cuban necktie or a Cleveland steamer.

But you were just hungry, and understandably disappointed that the cop shop was nothing like the one in Hill Street Blues.

Christ. Ten minutes after reading it, I finally get the Pretenders joke.

Thank you, I really enjoyed reading this story. It was cool, and funny, and cool again. I’ll go and find the prequel now.

I love this Ducky! So you and Michele brought out the crafty in each other (great line!), huh. Such a great glimpse into that moment when you simultaneously grow up and grow down. The future self meeting the past self in a moment of shame and terror.

The fist-fucking thing. Something I’ve never even contemplated–a funny terror!

I wish you were the cop who pulled me over tonight on the way back from seeing Sherlock Holmes. Instead, I get the typical donut cop who flags me three times for various offenses. Hell, I should be grateful. At least he didn’t find my weed.

Wow, you’ve got great taste. Isabelle Adjani in Queen Margot is the most beautiful woman I ever saw. Not that she isn’t beautiful in other movies. I just prefer her most in that one. Unfortunately, I loaned my copy to someone and never got it back.

You have experienced something very few of us have or will ever experience. Have you ever written about it in detail? Did I miss a longer post? Or is it something you will tackle in the future? I seem to recall it happened some time ago (is that correct?) Still, it has to have its residual effects. Which of course is all fascinating to me.

Sorry I’m getting to this so late–we seem to be flooded with great entries lately, and it’s getting hard to keep up with them all.

This was great. Many, many great lines in this. My personal favorite was the bit about the root beer flavored lipstick.

As I mentioned on part 1, I got busted shoplifting when I was 13. Like you, I was amazed at how empty & sterile the sheriff’s station was—no surly prisoners in cells, no overworked detectives pouring over case files. Just seemed like a big empty business. Years later I worked as a civilian at a police department, and found out it’s like that all the time. It was only when I went out on ridealongs with the officers that I saw some stuff closer to the fiction we get on TV and in film.

No worries, Matt. Glad you got here. And many thanks for the accolades.

I really wanted to see some hookers and pimps. For some reason, I was always fascinated by them. Sometimes I’d ask my Dad to go to this certain park because it meant driving down Harry Hines Boulevard, and that’s where they all hung out. (He didn’t know I just wanted to see the hookers. I liked their shoes.)

Crack whores hadn’t been invented yet. I’m now equally fascinated by them. One time, I rode the subway from Brooklyn all the way up to the Bronx just to watch one particular crack whore. The things that came out of her mouth have filtered into some of my scripts.

While I was doing a ridealong once we busted a couple of teenage prostitutes working behind a closed Mexican restaurant. They’d been using meth for a while and their skin and teeth were all fucked up. One of them talked about how she hoped she’d be dead by nineteen, because it would be be the best thing that ever happened to her. One of the saddest things I’d ever seen.

Crucial difference between choosing to be a worker in the sex trade vs. turning to it because you’re strung out on drugs/forced into it by a man/psychologically damaged/etc.

Personally, I think prostitution should be legalized. Cut out the pimps and the dealers, set mandatory medical standards for the workers, set up the necessary oversight and administration. Safer for the clients and the workers.

I agree. Big difference. But some would argue that it’s exploitation regardless.

And I agree with legalizing. We could solve a lot of our economic problems by legalizing prostitution and/or marijuana.

I wonder how it came to be illegal in the first place. Like, when, way back in time, did someone decide, “Fucking for money is wrong, and I’m making a law about it.” I’m sure it was carried here from across the seas – but I wonder when in time it happened and what were the circumstances.

A TNBer twisted my arm to come read this blog. I was told to look past the title, which did not appeal to me in the least, and to read the story. It took me a bit to get over here but I’m glad I made it. You did a great job in capturing both the ignorance and arrogance of youth.

Rootbeer lipgloss… Lip gloss was the only thing I’d ever stolen until I snatched a magazine from the doctor’s office last year. I returned the gloss within the hour. I was 9 and coulda swore I heard God say, “Put that back” but the magazine, which sports Zoe Brock on the cover will not be going back! In fact, I think it wasdivine intervention that inspired me to walk out with it. haha

Hey Josie, thanks for reserving judgement. I didn’t get too many hits on my last one, so I thought I’d experiment and see if a title change might help. Unfortunately, I did get more hits with this one, so I might keep the trend.

And I’m glad I was reformed, too. Truthfully, it just didn’t dawn on me that we were stealing. So clueless and misdirected.

Jesus, I missed this the first time around, you blink your eyes or settle in for those glorious 2 hours of sleep a night and BOOM! Everything is different. Maybe The Nervous Breakdown is giving me a nervous breakdown because I keep missing so much cool shit.

I love this story, Ducky!

I’m so glad there was a follow up. Your writing is impeccable and vivid. Cock-eyed boobs and Bonnie Bell lip gloss. I want more.

Damn. This is one of my favorite pieces on here. I don’t even know what to say. But I know I need to leave a comment so you know read it and liked it. I guess I could have just told you on Facebook. Thank you, Ducky. This is good. Thank you.